Pro's and Bow's

[windmaker]

Will pro's ever use flat kites in competition ? With there superior power control and safety, flat kites make kitesurfing easier and safer thus less extreme. Will a pro on a bow kite ever have the same credibility as one on a C shape when confronted to a jury?

[Toby]

I'm sure. We will also see foils in worldcups!

The only question will be: did the teamrider choose to fly a bow or would he rather fly a C ???

But we are at the beginning of the flat shape possibilities, so give it some time to develop. The future has the answer!

Greets
Toby

[gumball]

Although Clinton Bolton rides all our kites this year, Waroos, Yarga Pros, Nemi Pros and regular Yargas, as they all rock, he leans toward the Waroos most of the time.

[Wawando]

Hi,

I am not a pro and nothing even close to it. My main spot is a hard wind and sea with waves every day.
I have been riding Cs with 27m to 20m lines and bows (mostrly the Nova 9m that is mine).
My conclusion so far is simple: get used to it and anything works!
As i am not a pro, the time i invested in learning to ride is precious. And specially when wave riding, a bow is really different.
So i am going to go for Vegas now that has huge depower and gives me more return in the learning investment i have been doing in the last years.

This total depower madness makes sense for some ridesrs but from my point of view, a huge percentage of us really don't need it and it is in fact counter productive.

Some other riders around here feel the same (pros and experts).

See you!

[Phillipp]

In the OZ nationals we had a Switchblade rider among the top 3. He is not forced to ride either for Cabrinha nor use the Switchblade. These kites were his own choice.

It took him some time to transition all the moves from C to Bow. But he now has at least the same repertoire and is leveraging some of the unique Bow features to his advantage.

P

[Phillipp]

Hi,

I am not a pro and nothing even close to it. My main spot is a hard wind and sea with waves every day.
I have been riding Cs with 27m to 20m lines and bows (mostrly the Nova 9m that is mine).
My conclusion so far is simple: get used to it and anything works!
As i am not a pro, the time i invested in learning to ride is precious. And specially when wave riding, a bow is really different.
So i am going to go for Vegas now that has huge depower and gives me more return in the learning investment i have been doing in the last years.

This total depower madness makes sense for some ridesrs but from my point of view, a huge percentage of us really don't need it and it is in fact counter productive.

Some other riders around here feel the same (pros and experts).

See you!

The Vegas 06 is a sweet kite. I hope you don't have to go for the 16. Otherwise you need to be taller than 160cm because the bag is ultra long...

What was North thinking with those long battens. They could have made them in two parts like Flexifoil...

P

[ZenWind]

I've got to say that I was totally against Bow type kites after flying the Xbow. I just could not understand why anyone would fly that kite. I even started to get the attitude of "Bows are for gays", but always stopped short of that expression in respect of gay people, and in respecting that even though people like different things than me, that doesn't mean mine is right and theirs is wrong.

All that said; after flying the Waroo it changed all that for me. Before I felt like flying a Bow type kite would mean learning everything over again, because it was such a different feel, and who cares about full depowering anyhow? Well I felt comfortable immediately with the Waroo, and because of that I started to see the advantages of the depowering capabilities in my riding. You can start doing stuff you normally would not do because you know you are not going to pay the price in injury or pain from getting spanked. It just opens up other avenues of riding that were not there before; ways in which you can surf the waves and ride the board.

Now I know those of you that are Best haters will think this is a Best advertisement, but if you look back over the history of my posts you will see that just isn't the case. In fact I never thought I would ever own a Best kite. But the Waroo just works and that is my main criteria. Get the kite that works for you. If that isn't the Waroo then that's great, have fun with whatever you have or purchase; but for me the Waroo just works so well, at least in the 9M size as I have yet to try the other sizes, and it has changed my point of view on these type of kites.

[Stone]

Can the same tricks be done on a bow vs a C kite?
The answer is yes.

Are there some advantages and trade-offs between using a bow and a C kite? Yes

More depower/power on the bow kites make it more difficult (not impossible) to unhook and throw tricks while at the same time being able to ride hooked in comfortably. The pulley system that most companies use for their bow kites also greatly increase the turning speeds of those kites, which also makes it very hard to do some unhooked moves. Of course, I've seen people throw down crazy moves on a bow kite, and I've seen people throw down crazy moves on C kites.

In the end, it really comes down to personal preference, which is what it always comes down to. You should see some of the looks I get when I ride a pulley bar when I'm travelling. People can't understand why I'd ride one, but at the same time, I don't understand how people ride around with the bar moving everywhere, and not being able to grab in the center of the bar. So for me, it's important to have the same pull when I'm hooked in or not. For someone else, it probably doesn't make a difference.

So, in the end, though lots of pros are going to want to keep riding C kites, because that's what they're used to, the worldcup riders will probably be pressured into it by sponsors, or by younger riders who have only ridden a bow kite doing the same tricks they only do on C kites. Does that make sense?

Jason

[Toby]

I think so too, it is all a question of getting used to it.
And surely, if you are used to C, a bow does not feel the same, so you may not like it.
But there will be soon a generation who just rode/ride on bows, and they will beat the shit out of us!

Greets
Toby

[Wawando]

I think so too, it is all a question of getting used to it.
And surely, if you are used to C, a bow does not feel the same, so you may not like it.
But there will be soon a generation who just rode/ride on bows, and they will beat the shit out of us!

Greets
Toby

The bows that most people like are the ones that are like C shapes with big depower. The bows that depower "too much" or are more on/off are more technical to ride so will have less friends. A interesting thing that i imagine that huge depower bows should be better at is "parking" anywhere in the window for example to surf with a surf board. Anyone confirms this?

So at the end, for some of us, what we want are kites with more windrange. This allows us to:
- better wave riding taking advantage of the depower when going down the wave face
- use better a kite across the windrange using more depower in the top end and more power in the lowend

For the others - that ride in little wind areas or very stable winds or flat water - i think that depower is not the goal at all. In fact it will worse things.

And i have a personal feeling backed with some sessions that in really gusty wind, high depower kites (Bows and HD C shaped) are worse than more constant power ones (C shaped).

See you!